If I can’t buy more yarn…

Today’s all about house renovations. If you’re here just for the knitting, you can stop reading now…
I bought the house 6.5 years ago. I made a lot of changes (mostly for the good) but then I lost steam. Very similar to what can happen on big kniting projects.


the kitchen, today

It’s time to finish up the biggest project — the kitchen.
It’s not in terrible shape, but several things need to be addressed. Continue reading in the extended entry.

  • It needs a new countertop. The black countertop is too dark for this small kitchen.
  • It needs more storage space. What kitchen doesn’t?
  • It needs some seating room.
  • Some cabinets need to be leveled. It’s an 80 year old house and the kitchen is partly original and partly addition. The floor curves down a bit where the 2 meet.
  • It needs some finishing (window sill is missing, and the ceiling above the stove is unfinished).

Here’s a floorplan


It’s a small kitchen (see more pics here). Not counting the pantry/refrigerator area, it’s 10 feet x 8 feet. And since there are rooms on 2 sides of the kitchen, you lose wall space that could be used for storage.
We want to get as much done as possible before my vacation the week of May 7th. If it’s close to being done, I may be able to tackle the downstairs bathroom (which needs a tile floor, new toilet and vanity, and new shower surround). We’re also getting estimates to do a patio in the back with sliding doors going to the outside. I’ve wanted to do that ever since I bought the house.
Why all the motivation now? All these HGTV renovation shows! I keep watching them and thinking “wow, they’re so lucky to be done”. I want to be done too.

15 thoughts on “If I can’t buy more yarn…

  1. Great motivation! You sound just like me with all the remodels. I’m currently redoing the backyard. Next project – master bath.

  2. It looks like you have some good ideas to get some extra storage and open up the space visually. I’ll be looking forward to seeing the “after” pictures!

  3. Delicious looking kitchen and what a wonderful stove!
    I have a challenge for you…if you finish the kitchen before the week of May 7th, I will send you something from my work (you’ll have to email me to ask me where I work) for your kitchen. It will be worth it :)

  4. Since I’ve been a homeowner for a few short months I have become massively addicted to HGTV. The cool thing is that now there is so much info out there that we can actually DO this stuff ourselves!
    Good luck with the project, if you need drywall mudded than I’m your girl :-)

  5. We barely started watching this channel a week ago and now I have a gazillion ideas and I feel so self-concious about my house. I want to decorate my bedroom, re-do the kitchen, the bathroom and find some cute things to decorate the house with. I love the channel–I really do :)

  6. Sorry, my comment is unrelated to your kitchen. I was sent here by Google (via RedJellyfish.com) when I searched for two-color long-tail cast-on, which uses my weekly allotment of hyphens AND which I have done a bazilliontyleven times before and am too dim to recall this earlyearlyearly AM. Your post on the topic got me back on track. Thanks!

  7. We’ve been working on the bedroom. Drywall, new larger window, framing a closet. It’s taken awhile, but we’re close to being ready to paint!
    Make sure and show us the after pics.

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